Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

After the event, Lakosch was at a loss to explain how he entered the room, what the lieutenant colonel said to him when he pinned the medal with its black, white and red ribbon to his chest, or how he found his way back to his own bunker. In a state of dazed unease, his let his comrades’ congratulations wash over him. His father’s face loomed up before him, that tired, embittered face, whose lines and creases were deeply ingrained with coal dust even on his days off. What would his old man have said? ‘Hitler – that means war!’ Lakosch began to understand at last…

A short while later, Lance Corporal Lakosch removed the ribbon from his tunic and put it in his pocket. When Breuer, with a shake of his head, informed him that, according to army regulations, he was required to wear the decoration for twenty-four hours after receiving it, he mumbled something about ‘too bad’ and refused to put the ribbon back on in the days that followed. And because Sergeant Major Harras no longer had his beady eye on the men of the Staff HQ, nobody noticed its absence.

In the Intelligence Section’s bunker, all the preparations had been made for Christmas Eve. Granted, no one had even thought about trying to put up a tree; no doubt, such a thing couldn’t be had for love nor money throughout the entire Cauldron. Instead, they’d hung a barrel hoop from the low plank roof and wound strips of green paper and pine twigs around it; dangling from it were the shiny dog tags and wristbands that Corporal Herbert used as currency when trading with the civilian population, along with shiny silver and gold tinsel made from the foil from inside old cigarette packets. But the most valuable things on the makeshift Christmas wreath, which they’d been keeping safe for ages, were four solitary little wax candles. A more substantial candle, which Lakosch had acquired from somewhere in exchange for tobacco, had been carefully dissected into three bits and used to make wall lights, set in wooden holders artistically whittled over many days by the skilful hands of Sonderführer Fröhlich.

Since early morning, a festive and reflective atmosphere had reigned in the bunker. Everyone was making a special effort to be friendly and helpful. Lanky Geibel, with his round, doll-like eyes set in a guileless child’s face, sat daydreaming. Herbert, as fussy and bustling as a housewife, busied himself with trying to improve the look of the place. The main thing preying on his mind was that he hadn’t had a chance to bake anything. Sadly, he contemplated his stock of flavourings and essences, and went off on flights of fancy, dreaming up audacious recipes for artificial marzipan and all manner of honey cakes. Today, even Fröhlich resisted talking about the military and political situation, and instead told tales of Yuletide celebrations past at his father’s parsonage near Riga, and the little ‘Adler Trumpf’ saloon car he’d surprised his wife with four years ago at Christmas. Only Lakosch mooned about the bunker, glowering and taciturn. Towards midday, Captain Fackelmann put in an appearance; after Harras’s departure, he’d assumed responsibility once more for supervising the staff’s troops.

‘Sad to report, lads,’ he declared glumly, ‘there’s nothing extra today. Half a pack of crispbread and three ciggies each: that’s your lot. I wish I could treat you, but there’s nothing to be had – absolutely nothing, believe me!’

They believed him. They knew he’d give his eye teeth to be able to present the men with a slap-up five-course meal today. But they could clearly see that he wasn’t getting enough to eat himself. His appearance had changed alarmingly over the past few weeks. His face was as yellow as a quince and heavily lined, and the skin hung down from his cheeks in limp bags. ‘Just a touch of jaundice,’ he’d reply to concerned enquiries after his health, and with a lame attempt at humour would go on: ‘In years to come, if anyone asks me if I was one of those who came back from Stalingrad, I can say: “Yes, in part! When I went there I weighed a hundred and ninety-three pounds, now I’m only a hundred and thirty. The rest of me stayed there.”’

But the poor fellow looked so thoroughly wretched it was really difficult raising a laugh in response.

‘Incidentally,’ the captain said as he was leaving, ‘the CO’s given us leave to dip into the iron rations for Christmas. Dunno if that’s of any use to you…?’

They smiled sheepishly at one another. Yeah, right, the iron rations – they’d been used up weeks ago, for Christ’s sake! When it grew dark outside, Breuer lit the candles. An unfamiliar warm glow suffused the cramped space and was reflected in the silver tinsel on the wreath and the bright eyes of the six men who sat silently watching the flickering flames. And as the smell of melting candle wax and crackling pine twigs spread, a breath of home wafted through the bunker. Breuer picked up his mouth organ and began softly playing the old tunes of Christmas Eve.

One after the other, the men joined in: Herbert’s light, fresh tenor, Lieutenant Wiese’s rather quavery baritone and Fröhlich’s booming bass, which threatened to drown out everyone else.

The men’s souls, hardened by more than three years of war, unfolded like buds in the warm sun.

The carols sounded odd coming from throats coarsened by war, but the sweet resonance of them crossed the thousands of kilometres that separated the men from their homeland and permeated the bunker. The invisible hands of a loving wife, an anxious mother, stroked their hair, their foreheads, and the joyful voices of their children joined in inaudibly with their singing, Christmas, Christmas! You most sacred of all festivals, you eternally flowing spring of everything that is good within the human spirit!

Then Lieutenant Wiese opened the black book with the golden cross on its cover, and proceeded to read the simple words of the Christmas story. The men listened with rapt attention. They were the shepherds abiding in the fields, to whom, in their painful awareness of the dreadful present, a new revelation of something long buried was now being imparted.

Their fervent hopes of receiving Christmas mail came to nothing. No letters or packages had arrived; no tangible greeting from home for the men. But now, one after the other, they started to fish out little gifts, presents that each of them had secretly collected for his comrades. They didn’t amount to much: a couple of cigarettes, carefully wrapped in paper, a carved pipe, a glued photograph frame. Fröhlich had drawn a little picture of the bunker for everyone, with the legend ‘A Souvenir of Christmas in the Cauldron, 1942’. Breuer gave Geibel, who was an avid smoker, two cigarillos he’d saved from more plentiful times. It turned out that Geibel had had much the same thought. Smiling in embarrassment, he produced a little packet of three cigarettes for the lieutenant, which he’d sacrificed with a heavy heart from the last five remaining in his iron rations. Lakosch, meanwhile, had disappeared outside. After a while, he came back in and put something on the table. It was his entire iron ration: a tin of ‘Scho-Ka-Kola’ chocolate and a bag of crispbreads.

‘Good job that at least someone didn’t eat all their rations!’ he growled. But his words were drowned out by the eruption of sheer delight that greeted his revelation. Breuer tipped the crispbreads into the lid of a billycan – a heap of broken bits mixed with mouse droppings.